Thraxas - The Complete Series

by Martin Scott

  To the disappointment of the crowd, the chariot is drawn into the warehouse without being uncovered. Now that the Orcs are here, and trouble has been kept at bay, not a few of the onlookers are keen for a sight of the chariot, if only to help them judge which way to bet. The horses look impressive enough—large and jet black, with fiery eyes and long manes, groomed to perfection.

  “They’re here,” says a voice in my ear.

  It’s Kemlath. This must be very strange for him. One of Turai’s most notable killers of Orcs, and he’s forced to watch them arriving in the city as guests of the King.

  Melus, Cicerius and the Orcs quickly depart in a string of carriages. The soldiers advance to clear away the crowds. We make our way back to the Avenging Axe via Honest Mox’s.

  As soon as I step inside I know we’ve lost our bets. I can always tell. I glance at the board on which Mox has just chalked up the result, fresh up from the Sorcerer in Simnia. Victory or Death lost by a short head.

  Makri’s head droops. We make to leave.

  “Been seeing your Orcish friends up at the harbour?” sneers a large docker with arms like tree trunks and fists to match. Makri spins on her heel so fast it’s hard to catch exactly what she does but at the end of it her elbow is sunk about eight inches into the docker’s stomach. His mouth opens. No sound comes out and he collapses to the floor. Makri walks out slowly and with dignity. I hurry after her. Kemlath is impressed.

  “Fine technique,” he says, but Makri is in too bad a mood to acknowledge the compliment. Instead she curses the rain.

  “It’ll be sunny tomorrow,” I say.

  “But I still won’t have any money,” says Makri. “I can’t believe I went through all that and I’m back where I started. These chariot races are fixed.”

  A woman with a basket appears through the gloom and Makri hurls herself down an alleyway out of sight.

  “Member of the A.G.?” I enquire, after she’s gone.

  “Coxi the fishwife. Very militant.”

  We make our way home through the impossible mud. I offer Makri my magic dry cloak but she says she’s so wet already it doesn’t matter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Two messages are waiting for me at the Avenging Axe. One of them, etched in magical letters of fire on my front door, says: Beware, your death approaches. Now I’ll have to get the door repainted. At least the rain put the fire out.

  The other one is from Cicerius. In it he informs me that Lord Rezaz is again threatening to leave the city if he doesn’t get his charioteer’s prayer mat back quickly. Now his chariot is here he wants to practise.

  I curse. This is the last night of the Hot Rainy Season. Everyone celebrates. Can’t they leave a man in peace for one day? How am I meant to find their damned prayer mat? If it’s so important to these Orcs, why did they lose it in the first place? Cicerius tells me that it’ll be another couple of weeks until the moons are in the correct alignment for Old Hasius to check back in time. That’s no use to anyone.

  I’m uptown, wondering what to do next. I have a couple of beers in a small tavern frequented by the young apprentices from the local silversmith. Inspiration fails to strike. I decide to visit Makri in the Library. Maybe she’ll have some good ideas. I find her sitting with a bundle of old scrolls, but she is too disconsolate about losing her money to have any good ideas.

  “Last day of the rain. Major celebration tonight.”

  “I don’t feel like celebrating,” replies Makri.

  “Neither do I.”

  A bearded scholar at the next table looks at us pointedly and we lower our voices. I glance at the scroll in front of Makri. It’s entitled Comparative Religion and is some deathly dull treatise on the subtle differences between religious practices in Turai and its neighbours. We pray three times a day in Turai. In Nioj it’s six. In Mattesh it’s four. Fascinating stuff.

  A germ of an idea appears. I lean forward to whisper to Makri. “Would this library have anything about Orc religion?”

  Makri doesn’t know. “If anything has ever been written about it, it’ll be here. Why?”

  “Sudden Investigator’s intuition,” I tell her.

  There’s a very large and comprehensive catalogue, which Makri, with her superior knowledge, starts checking. After a fair amount of shuttling back and forth between various volumes, she finally locates a relevant entry.

  “There is a scroll about Orcish religion. Just one. Written in the last century by some scholar I’ve never heard of.”

  Makri leads me to the centre of the library where the librarians sit behind a large counter decorated with paintings of the saints, most of whom seem to be reading manuscripts. She approaches a young man and asks him for the scroll. He blushes, then goes off to find it.

  “He has a crush on me,” whispers Makri.

  He’s gone a long time. When he finally returns he’s carrying a small scroll, the entire sum of knowledge in Turai about Orcish religion. I take it to a table and start to unroll it. The scroll is dusty with age, but I notice that some of the dust has recently been shifted.

  “Here. Chapter Three. Prayer mats.”

  It’s a very full description of the role of prayer mats in the Orcish Lands. I read it through.

  “The importance extends to the class of charioteers, who will not ride their chariot unless standing firmly on their mat. Failure to do so would mean they risked being sent to the place of damnation should they die in an accident whilst riding. Well, how about that?”

  I ask Makri to enquire of the young librarian if anyone has borrowed this scroll recently. I see him blushing, and then sorting through some records. Makri comes back to the table.

  “Pontifex Derlex,” she says. “He borrowed it last week. As far as the librarian can tell, he’s the first person to look at it in fifty years.”

  I rise to my feet. “A sudden breakthrough.”

  “Looks like it,” agrees Makri. “What made you think of it?”

  “Intuition. Some days it’s sharp as an Elf’s ear. Let’s go.”

  Makri leaves the library with me. She can’t concentrate on her studies because of her worries about the money.

  “Forget about the money. Cicerius will pay me a bundle when I take the prayer mat back. I’ll give you your share.”

  We find a landus to take us down to Twelve Seas. I ask Makri why she was discussing gambling with Hanama, but her reply is noncommittal and I don’t pursue it. I’m elated at finally making some progress. Pontifex Derlex. The man who claimed that the Orcs didn’t even have a religion. And here he is, reading all about it. Then removing the prayer mat no doubt. It makes sense. The True Church was always a strong candidate for sabotaging the Orcs, and the Pontifex is an ambitious young man. If Bishop Gzekius was casting around for volunteers he’d be first in line.

  Derlex lives in a small house in the grounds of the church in Saint Volinius’s Street. We march right up and knock on the door. The door swings open. I draw my sword and we advance cautiously. I note that the house is poorly furnished, in contrast to the splendid mansion inhabited by Bishop Gzekius. No lamps are lit in the evening gloom so I take out my illuminated staff and speak the command to give us more light.

  A groan comes from somewhere along the corridor. As we arrive in the main room Derlex is struggling to rise from the floor. There’s a large candlestick beside him and it looks like he’s been clubbed to the ground. I feel his pulse and check his wound.

  “You’ll live.”

  Derlex groans again and struggles to focus his eyes.

  “Was this connected with a certain Orcish prayer mat?” I demand.

  His hand reaches out to the chair behind him. There’s nothing on it. “It’s gone,” he says, and slumps back to the floor.

  “Who told you to steal it?” I ask, but Derlex isn’t talking any more. He slips back into unconsciousness. I have a quick look round, but don’t find anything.

  “Too late,” I mutter to Makri. “At least we’re on the trail.�
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  I send a message to the Bishop informing him that his Pontifex might not be able to take services for a day or two. Then I send another message to Cicerius giving him a full description of events. At least he’ll know I’m busy.

  “Who do you think took it?” enquires Makri.

  “No idea. I’ll think about it tomorrow. Right now it’s time for food, beer and some celebration.”

  After that smart piece of investigating, I figure I’m fully entitled to some relaxation. I head back to the Avenging Axe for a bite to eat, an early beer, and then a nap to prepare me for the full rigours of the night.

  By the time midnight rolls around on the last day of the Hot Rainy Season, celebrations are in full swing all over the city, nowhere more so than in the Avenging Axe. Nowhere more so than at my table, actually. Palax and Kaby are perched on the bar playing a flute and a mandolin. They’re looking as weird as ever. No one else in Turai has pierced eyebrows and they actually dye their hair bright colours, something I didn’t even know was possible till they arrived. Gave me quite a shock when I first saw them. They’re leading the revellers in raucous renditions of popular favourites while Gurd, Makri, Tanrose and another couple of bar staff hired specially for the occasion fill flagon after flagon of ale.

  The bar is full of singing mercenaries, dancing dockers, drunken fish vendors and smiling labourers. Everyone, including me, forgets their troubles for the night. Outside the rain is still pounding down, but tomorrow the clouds will roll away, the sun will shine and preparations for the Turas and Triple-Moon Conjunction festivals will get under way. I forget all about Mursius, Orcs, prayer mats, death threats and crime in general and concentrate on getting as many giant “Happy Guildsmen” tankards of ale down my throat as is humanly possible.

  Kemlath is sitting by my side and he’s about as happy as a drunken mercenary. “I haven’t had such a good time since the celebrations after the war,” he tells me. “I’d forgotten what a good night in a tavern was like.”

  A young prostitute sits down on his lap and admires his rainbow cloak and his fine jewellery, Kemlath takes off a bracelet and gives it to her. He’s a generous man, the big Sorcerer, and he buys drinks all round, which makes him popular. The only person who doesn’t seem to be smiling is Makri. She doesn’t have any money and Minarixa the baker is sitting right at the bar, which is embarrassing for her.

  “What’s the matter with your friend?” asks Kemlath.

  I explain to him that Makri has made somewhat of a blunder in gambling away the money she’d collected for the Association of Gentlewomen. Kemlath roars with laughter.

  “The Association of Gentlewomen,” he thunders. “A bunch of harridans. A plague on them!” He laughs some more, and catches Makri as she sways past with a tray of beers on her arm. She frowns.

  “Don’t frown,” cries Kemlath. He taps his illuminated staff on the floor, causing a rainbow to magically appear in the room. Everyone cheers, but Makri remains unmoved. Kemlath reaches into some corner of his voluminous robe and pulls out a fat purse.

  “How much do you owe them?”

  “Sixty gurans.”

  “A woman like you shouldn’t owe sixty gurans,” cries Kemlath. He says that he hasn’t seen such an impressive demonstration of unarmed combat as Makri showed at Mox’s shop this evening since he himself knocked three Orcs off the city walls after his spells had run out. Without hesitation the Sorcerer counts out twelve five-guran pieces and hands them to Makri. Makri is too wise to question such a gift. She grabs them, stuffs them in her purse, wriggles her way through the crowd to deliver her tray of beer, then beats a path to Minarixa and her friends at the bar. Through the haze of thazis smoke I see her handing over the money. From Minarixa’s reaction and Makri’s smile, it seems to do the trick. Makri is back in the good books of the A.G.

  She struggles her way back to us.

  “Thanks,” she says to Kemlath. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” says the Sorcerer.

  A flicker of suspicion crosses Makri’s face as she wonders exactly what Kemlath might expect in return for his sixty gurans, but he doesn’t seem to want anything. He’s just carried away by the good time he’s having in the Avenging Axe. It can hit you like that, sometimes, when you’re only used to the refined and rather dull pleasures of the upper classes.

  So now Makri is happy too. In the heat of the tavern, sweat pours down her near-naked figure. Makri has discovered that glistening skin seems to be good for tips and reckons she might as well use it to her advantage. The purse that hangs on a long string round her neck is bulging.

  “I was going to give you a hard time for that chariot losing,” she tells me. “I won’t now. But you’re still a lousy gambler.”

  “Nonsense. Didn’t I pick you plenty of winners? No one can do it all the time. Just wait till the Turas Memorial. I’m going to leave that race meeting a wealthy man. The Stadium Superbius has never seen anything like the damage I’m going to inflict on the bookmakers.”

  Makri grins. “Won’t you be too busy looking after the Orcs?”

  “Don’t remind me. They won’t even be racing if I don’t find that prayer mat. But now I’ve made a start I expect I’ll track it down soon enough. You know me, dogged.”

  Gurd takes a break to join Kemlath and me, and we start swapping war stories. The arrival of Lord Rezaz has stirred a lot of memories and we reminisce about this and that till Gurd is called away to change a barrel of beer in the cellar.

  A woman falls on top of me. It’s Sarija. Her cloak is wet and mud-splattered and she’s full of dwa.

  “I thought you’d be having a good time in Twelve Seas,” she says, and falls off my lap and on to the floor. Kemlath helps her into a seat.

  “Where does a woman get a beer around here?” she demands, banging on the table till Makri arrives.

  “Wish I had your figure,” says Sarija. “But bring me a beer anyway.”

  Another wet hand paws at my shoulder. It’s Kerk, who’s just arrived looking very poorly indeed. He doesn’t waste any time but thrusts a small bust of an Elf into my hand.

  “From Mursius’s collection,” he yells, above the din. “Found it at Axa’s.” Axa is another purveyor of stolen goods who operates around the harbour.

  He holds out his hand for payment. His face carries the haunted look that descends on a man when he needs dwa more than anyone has ever needed anything in the world before. It takes me a few seconds to register. I nod dumbly, and fish in my purse for some gurans, and probably end up paying him too much. He departs without a word. I give the bust a quick glance then stuff it in my bag.

  “More evidence?” says Kemlath. “Do you want me to study it?”

  “Tomorrow,” I reply. “It can wait.”

  Kemlath expresses some surprise at my casual manner. I spread my hands.

  “It’s okay. You see, Kemlath, criminals in this city aren’t really that smart. They always leave some trail behind them. People think I must be doing something pretty damned clever to keep catching them. That’s why I keep up the pretence of Sorcerous Investigator when really I can hardly do any sorcery. Good for the reputation. I like people to think I’m moving heaven, earth and the three moons to put these crooks behind bars. In reality I just plod along the trail till I catch up with them.”

  “What if you run up against someone really smart?”

  “Hasn’t happened yet. More beer?”

  The revelry continues all through the night. Kemlath shows me a good trick for conjuring rainbows out of my illuminated staff. I send rainbows all over the tavern, up people’s legs and into their drinks, which keeps me entertained. It’s years since anyone taught me any new magic. Sarija drinks herself unconscious and falls asleep on Kemlath’s lap. I smoke so much thazis I can barely join in with the soldiers’ drinking songs initiated by Gurd.

  “You’re a fine man,” I tell Kemlath, putting my arm round his shoulder. “One of the best. These other Sorcerers are
all stuck-up snobs. I hate them. But you, you’re a soldier. I always did like you.”

  Makri is happy. She’s back in favour with the A.G. and she’s making loads of tips. She swings lithely through the crowd, dealing out beers to customers and slaps to anyone whose hands show signs of straying as she passes, though in quite a friendly way for Makri. No bones are broken. When she takes another break she joins us for a while and gets into conversation with Kemlath, who seems quite taken with her. As the big Sorcerer is definitely a more cultured man than your average Twelve Seas drinker, Makri finds him interesting. She tells him about her current projects at the Guild College and mentions the plants she brought back from Ferias for her natural history class.

  “Strange things,” she says. “Even my tutor isn’t sure what they are.”

  Something nags at me. I try and ignore it. I don’t want things to nag at me when I’m having a good time. I drink another beer. No good, it’s still nagging. Why did Mursius have rare unknown plants in his window boxes? No reason, probably. I drink another beer. Again it’s no good. It won’t go away. Sometimes I hate these Investigator’s intuitions. Won’t leave a man alone to enjoy himself. I drag myself out of my chair and upstairs, along to Makri’s room. This is furnished with extreme simplicity, as Makri has very few possessions. Nothing but a cloak, some books and a lot of weapons. In contrast to me, Makri is very tidy and her few belongings are neatly positioned around the room.

  She’s rooted the plants in little pots of earth beside the window. I grab one of them and take it downstairs, fighting my way through the throng to where Chiaraxi the healer and Cospali the herbalist are sitting at a table in the corner. Both women are unusual in that they run shops in Twelve Seas, a rare activity for a woman. Both are, incidentally, supporters of the Association of Gentlewomen, probably because they are not allowed to join the trade Guilds, which is bad for their business.

  “Either of you ever see this plant before?”

  They study it. Chiaraxi shakes her head but Cospali thinks it might be a variety of the coix plant, which they use in the far west for treating delirium.